“Between the Refrigerator and the Wildfire”: Aimee Semple McPherson, Pentecostalism, and the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy

Abstract

Early one Canadian winter morning in 1908, a teenage girl knelt to pray, pleading with God to grant her the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.” Soon her petition was answered. Her body began to tremble, she slipped to the ground, and out of her lips escaped murmurs in unknown tongues. The next day, during Sunday services at a little pentecostal mission, the teenager again quaked on the floor while jabbering strange syllables. A parishioner was so shocked that he telephoned the girl's parents and implored them to retrieve the way-ward adolescent immediately. When the young woman learned that her mother was en route, panic engulfed her. How could she make her parents understand? Would they forbid her from worshipping with pentecostals?

Obituari: Aimee Semple Mc Pherson (1890–1944)

“…Pengalaman pertamanya didapatkan ketika ada seorang wanita yang mengalami kesembuhan dari persendian yang membengkak hingga nyeri. Semenjak peristiwa itulah, banyak orang yang berduyunduyun datang dan meminta untuk didoakan (Sutton, 2003).…”

“…Hal ini dapat dilihat dari banyaknya orang datang menghadiri Kebaktian Kebangunan Rohani (KKR) yang ia adakan. Apalagi pada masa itu, tahun 1908, mulai berkembang gerakan pentakosta (Sutton, 2003), sebuah gerakan akhirnya meluas ke berbagai daerah di Amerika hingga ke belahan dunia.…”

“…Katekisasi dan penginjilan lewat majalah yang dilakukan Aimee merupakan pelopor bagi pelayanan majalah rohani hingga saat ini (Sutton, 2003). Melalui metode ini, Aimee menjangkau banyak jiwa yang belum percaya Tuhan.…”

Seeding the Vision: Symbolic Convergence Theory and Aimee Semple McPherson

“…She preached the Word (evangelism), provided education (through the Bible college), and as I indicated earlier, worked to meet social needs (Webber, 1999). Not only did McPherson work to lower barriers among denominations, she worked with a wide collection of groups, ranging from informal Pentecostal groups to very formal Episcopalian ones (Sutton, 2003), and she also reached across social boundaries (Updike, 2007). This allowed certain of her gospel-based fantasy themes to be productive in that they reached people outside of her standard revival meetings and radio broadcasts, spreading the themes ever more broadly.…”

“…Neither Wesley nor McPherson set out to build a new denomination-both meant to support existing churches through spiritual revival (Blumhofer, 1993;Sutton, 2003;Tuttle, 2006;Wesley Center for Applied Theology, 1999).…”